So I went on a date Friday night. I feel bad for simplifying a whole evening with Stephanie to a mere eight words, since the whole time was absolutely wonderful. In fact, up to a certain point, I felt like I could describe it as "magical." Then religion came into play.
I'm not upset about the fact that she's a Catholic. And she's not upset about the fact that I'm agnostic. It was, instead, one of those tiny, insignificant details that made me wonder if I truly am an optimist.
Anyway, this date was just plain lovely. First came dinner at the Japanese sushi bar / hibachi place in downtown FW. She had never had Japanese, and thus had never seen the guy cook right in front of her. A dish of fried rice and sesame chicken, splashed with a big fire, left us both happy and ready to take a risk.
The risk was in the form of Four Day Weekend, a 5-man improv troupe where Caravan of Dreams used to exist. The risk comes in at the door, where it's really 18 and over. So we pick up our tickets (while I had been shaking with nervousness in the line) and walk straight in. The show turned out to be hilarious - I couldn't stop merrily telling the poor girl sitting next to me how elated I was to have gotten in the door.
An hour and a half later, we're at the Coffee Haus just across the street, watching people over an Italian soda and an Eskimocha and watching kids in riced-out cars circle around the block trying to pick up coffee-house chicks.
The whole thing went perfectly. On the way back to my car (parked in the Sundance garage on the north side of downtown), Steph turned to me and said "you did good." My heart sank, and looking into her eyes I felt like I was a puppy. We reach my car, and I've been struck down by the fella upstairs: my tire's flat.
I can't do much car maintenance, but I can figure my way through changing a flat. So I pull out all the necessary tools from the trunk, jack up the car, and take the little bolts off the wheel. As I'm pulling the tire off, the jack falls over, and the car no longer has a wheel on it as it falls to the ground, right on the axle. I wanted to start to cry, and promptly jump off the garage from the nearest window possible. An old (40) woman, with 3 kids, parked on the next row over and offered to help. They were of little avail, so I handed Stephanie my cell phone and told her to get a ride home.
She refused to leave.
Shortly thereafter, a patrolling Bass cop appeared behind me. I was saved when he called over the radio for a guy to bring up one of those giant hydraulic professional-grade jacks. The guy appeared in 10 minutes, and the cop duo told us to stand aside (which I happily did) and the tire was changed very quickly. With my new tire on, the cops began to leave, and one turned to me and said "You're lucky you weren't under that car. Anything under there would have been crushed."
And the guy was right. Luckily, I think I was saved by reflexes: when things got bad, I pulled away from that car as quickly as humanly possible. Luckily, my car turned out fine, body damage notwithstanding. Its little fall didn't hurt anything, and we got home safely. I was silent for several minutes, still trying to get over the stress that just about killed me. Stephanie broke the ice, tenderly pointing out that "it could have been a lot worse." I refused to accept it, for the date which had been magical a mere hour ago had turned into a massive stress-fest resulting in my own humiliation and complete freaking out. Coming onto I-30, I motioned back to downtown and said to Stephanie "See, that's the reason why I don't believe in God."
She replied, "That's why I do."
